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Media Release

American Bert Patenaude credited with first hat trick in FIFA World Cup™ history

(FIFA.com) 10 Nov 2006

Credit where credit is due: thanks to evidence from various historians and football fans, as well as lengthy research and confirmation from the US Soccer Federation, American Bert Patenaude has been retrospectively entered in FIFA’s records as the first player to score a hat trick in FIFA World Cup™ history by virtue of his three goals in the USA’s 3-0 win over Paraguay in Montevideo (Uruguay) on 17 July 1930.

For a long time Argentinian Guillermo Stabile was credited with being the first player to net three goals in a World Cup match. On 19 July 1930 the Argentinian forward scored a hat trick in his country’s 6-3 victory over Mexico, but, as has now been established, this came two days after Patenaude’s triple-strike.

Another discrepancy was cleared up in the course of this research, as a result of which Oldrich Nejedly of Czechoslovakia has been awarded a goal. Nejedly is now credited with all three of his country’s goals in their 3-1 victory over Germany in the 1934 World Cup semi-final in Italy, which constitute the sixth hat trick in FIFA World Cup™ history. Nejedly’s new total of five goals makes him top-scorer outright of the 1934 FIFA World Cup™, ahead of Edmund Conen (Germany) and Angelo Schiavio (Italy), with four goals apiece.

For a complete list of World Cup hat tricks, click on the following link at FIFA.com .

By contrast, the research also showed that the Brazilian Leonidas only scored seven goals at the 1938 FIFA World Cup, rather than the eight that were previously recorded in the FIFA annals. In the quarter-final tie against Czechoslovakia, he scored once, not twice as FIFA had originally recorded.